We’re offering a unique opportunity to take part in one of the most exciting changes to affect the technology industry: the move to the cloud.

As Technical Writer in Canonical’s Launchpad team you’ll find the best way to ensure that users and developers of our software understand its benefits and how to use it. Whether it’s traditional documentation, screen casts or blog posts, you’ll find it easy to choose the right medium and you’ll have all the skills necessary to produce compelling, involving and effective content.

You’ll thrive in a rapidly changing environment where you’ll be expected to grasp new concepts quickly, develop an intimate understanding of three or four products simultaneously and determine the day to day shape of your own work.

A skilled writer, you’ll excel at finding the right information from your research and then communicating it with a casual confidence that puts people at ease and, most importantly, leaves them with the understanding they need to be effective.

Reporting to the team’s Product Manager, you’ll work as part of a fun-loving, highly skilled, global development team who produce tools including Launchpad, MAAS and Bazaar. You’ll share our love of hard work and our passion for free software, Ubuntu and the cloud.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities

Explain our products through traditional documentation, screencasts, podcasts and any other appropriate method.

Help ensure community and developer engagement with our platforms by documenting APIs and communicating the benefits of our various offerings.

Tell the story of the products we develop, through compelling blog posts and white papers.

Speak directly to the communities who use and develop our software in order to plan how you can best cater to their needs.

Required skills and experience

Your written English is well crafted, compelling and fun. You care about how you write, as much as what you write. You’ve produced end-user documentation, developer documentation, blog posts and white papers. What’s more, you enjoy doing it.

You have at least five years’ experience as technical writer, whether that’s professionally or as a consistent contributor to open source projects.

You’re smart: you find no problem in learning and owning a new concept.

When you speak, you find an instant rapport with your conversational partner or audience, and have no trouble in pitching your message appropriately.

When you listen, you ask all the right questions and can use the answers to create content that is appropriate to your audience and the information you need to communicate.

You live and breathe open source technology. You know the industry, understand the community and share the ideals. You know your OpenStack from your Intel, your ARM from your aaS and your Bugzilla from your Git.

You’re equally comfortable dealing with people in person, by phone, over email or using IRC and other remote communication tools.

You are willing to travel internationally, for periods of one or two weeks and occasionally longer, for conferences, developer-oriented meetings and sprints.

Desirable skills and experience

You’ve worked as part of team building cloud-related technologies or developer tools.

You use Ubuntu and are familiar with Launchpad and Bazaar.

You have a familiarity with one or more of the following:

IaaS platforms such as OpenStack, AWS, Eucalyptus

Ubuntu Server, particularly in cloud contexts

ARM server

distributed version control systems

a form of Linux packaging, such as .deb or .rpm

Python development

You have taken an active role in an open source software project and understand the dynamics, demands and constraints of working in a distributed community of volunteer and paid developers.

You’ve worked as part of a distributed team and can demonstrate the self-motivation and discipline required in such an environment.

Do you want to be one of the engineers building the infrastructure at the heart of the cloud revolution?

At Canonical we’re developing technologies that are key to the transition to the cloud, with Ubuntu as the number one cloud operating system. We are looking for a fun, talented software engineer whose ingenuity, self-motivation and engineering skill have contributed to a shining track record of successful projects.

Alongside four or five other engineers, you’ll be part of an agile engineering squad, in Canonical’s Launchpad team, working in either a new development or maintenance role on a different cloud-related project every six to nine months. Your work will touch projects such as OpenStack, MAAS, AWSome and the Launchpad SaaS developer tools platform.

To succeed you’ll need to share our love of hard work and our passion for free software, Ubuntu and the cloud.

Your energy and enthusiasm will be key to delivering the project, and to making the squad fun to be a part of.

Key Skills and Accountabilities

Develop new features in existing web or cloud applications or even start new ones from scratch.

Participate in the maintenance of the portfolio of applications maintained by the Launchpad team (a group of six development squads).

Collaborate within a small team of four to five engineers to design and deliver agreed features on an established schedule.

Ensure high quality results from across the team by participating in established team practices such as code review and testing.

Maintain readable developer-oriented documentation.

Coordinate regularly with the rest of the Launchpad team.

Required Skills and Experience

You have extensive experience in development of web applications using a major object or oriented application framework

You are proficient with the technologies powering the web such as Python, HTTP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript

You live and breathe open source technology. You know the industry, understand the community and share the ideals. You know your OpenStack from your intel, your ARM from your aaS and your Bugzilla from your Git

You are well experienced with at least one web application framework, such as Rails, Django, Zope/Plone, Pyramid, Turbogears, Web Objects, etc

You are well experienced with at least one JavaScript library/framework such as YUI 3/2, jQuery, Dojo, MooTools, or Prototype

You love easy to use software and pay particular attention to making your applications a joy to use

You have created stellar user interfaces using JavaScript, HTML and CSS

You’re skilled in object-oriented programming in the Python language

How people solve complex problems in software fascinates you. You also know that reliable and maintainable code are essential to long-term success. You’re familiar with writing about what needs to be done, as well as test-driven development and other “agile methods

You have strong spoken English communication skills, and can communicate clearly in writing, including email and IRC environments.

You have a good sense of humour and enjoy building a fun working environment with your colleagues.

You are willing to travel internationally, for periods of one or two weeks and occasionally longer, for conferences, developer-oriented meetings and sprints

Desired Skills and Experience

You are familiar with interaction design and have contributed to the user interface of a leading web application.

You have built and managed a community around an open source project

You have contributed code to an open source project

You understand the basics of one or more of the following:

laaS platforms such as OpenStack, AWS, Eucalyptus

Ubuntu Server, particularly in cloud contexts

ARM server

Services Oriented Architecture

Message-passing systems

Distributed version control systems

A form of Linux packaging, such as .deb or .rpm

You are familiar with Agile/Lean development practices

You enjoy exploring new languages like Go, Haskell or Clojure

You have system programming experience in C

You worked as part of a distributed software engineering team and can demonstrate the self-motivation and discipline required in such an environment

Apply online, or talk to us in #launchpad-dev if you want to see what we do!

We’re looking for a couple of smart, motivated and experienced people to join us on the Launchpad team at Canonical.

First up is a Software Engineer, to join one of the Launchpad development squads working on both new Launchpad features and maintenance of existing functionality.

There’s also an opening for a Usability and Communications Specialist. This is to join Launchpad’s Product Team, where we’re looking for someone who can run a usability research programme and produce documentation, blog posts and so on.

If you’ve got any questions about either role, feel free to grab me (mrevell) on FreeNode.